Age of Ethanols

Age of Ethanols is a fan-made, isometric real-time strategy game set in the Tōhō universe, where players assume the role of a commander aiding Reimu Hakurei in battles. The game features eleven distinct factions, each with unique hero units like Reimu, Marisa, and Suika, alongside basic red, green, and blue units. Gameplay revolves around resource management—collecting beer, faith, mushrooms/magic, and experience points—to build bases, recruit armies, and eliminate rival factions in competitive VS mode.

Age of Ethanols: An Exhaustive Examination of Gensokyo’s RTS Underdog

Introduction

In the shadow of titanic RTS franchises like Age of Empires and StarCraft, a modest doujin gem emerged in 2011 that dared to fuse bullet-hell lore with real-time strategy: Age of Ethanols. Developed by the obscure circle Neetpia for Japan’s Comiket 80, this Tōhō Project fangame carved a niche as a love letter to both Gensokyo’s occult tapestry and classic base-building gameplay. Amidst a 2011 gaming landscape dominated by AAA spectacle, Ethanols offered a scrappy, imaginative counterpoint—a testament to indie ingenuity constrained by its era’s technical limitations. This review posits that while Age of Ethanols brims with creative ambition, its legacy lies not in refinement but as a cult artifact of fandom devotion and grassroots game design.

Development History & Context

Neetpia, a doujin collective operating in the early 2010s indie underground, envisioned Age of Ethanols as a strategic reimagining of ZUN’s bullet-hell universe. Released at Comiket 80 (August 2011), the game emerged during a transitional period for RTS titles, as hyper-polished contemporaries like StarCraft II (2010) dominated the genre. Yet Ethanols’ DNA leaned harder into the 1997 Age of Empires template, adapted for the Tōhō mythos. Built on limited resources—targeting Windows XP/Vista with modest specs (dual-core CPU, 2GB RAM)—it epitomized the doujin ethos: prioritizing thematic authenticity over technical prowess.

The era’s doujin scene thrived on iterative passion projects, and Ethanols joined a wave of Tōhō fangames (Sengoku Gensokyo, Defence of the Shrines) that recontextualized its world across genres. Yet where peers focused on tower defense or RPGs, Neetpia gambled on RTS—a choice both audacious and fraught, given the genre’s steep design demands. The result was a game caught between ambition and austerity, its systems echoing Age of Empires’ rhythms but filtered through a distinctly Gensokyan lens.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

Age of Ethanols eschews grand narrative for archetypal Tōhō flair. Players assume the role of a nameless commander aiding shrine maiden Reimu Hakurei in quelling Gensokyo’s latest existential crisis—a threadbare premise serving mainly to contextualize its factional warfare. The story exists in vignettes: mission briefings and faction introductions lean on series staples, from the Scarlet Devil Mansion’s gothic arrogance to Eientei’s lunar mystique.

Characters, while voiceless, channel their canonical personalities through unit descriptions and visual design. Reimu embodies balanced versatility; Marisa Kirisame is a glass cannon; Suika Ibuki thrives in chaotic melee. Dialogue is sparse but flavorful, with hero units barking abbreviated spell-card names (“Master Spark!”) during combat. Thematically, the game mirrors Tōhō’s eternal clash between order (Hakurei Shrine) and chaos (Yukari’s gaps, Suika’s revelry), reframing Danmaku duels as territorial conquests. Yet deeper narrative potential remains untapped—a missed opportunity to explore Gensokyo’s socio-political fabric beyond skirmishes.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

Core Loop & Economics

Ethanols apes Age of Empires’ foundational loop: gather resources, erect structures, muster armies, annihilate rivals. Four resources dictate progress:
– Beer: Primary “food” analog, gathered from breweries or wild deposits.
– Faith: A Tōhō-flavored “gold,” pivotal for hero units and upgrades.
– Mushrooms/Magic: The “wood” equivalent, fueling basic construction.
– Points: Experience granted for kills/builds, unlocking spell cards and elite units.

Each of the 11 factions (Hakurei Shrine, Myouren Temple, Chireiden, etc.) shares this skeleton but diverges via unique hero units and faction buildings. The Scarlet Devil Mansion’s Library accelerates research; Hakugyokurou’s teleporting Gaps redefine mobility; Alice’s Villas replace standard town centers with offensive towers. Such asymmetrical designs elevate replayability, though balance wobbles—Eientei’s healing Clinics trivialize attrition, while Three Fairies of Light lack late-game potency.

Combat & Progression

Units split into three archetypes: Red (melee infantry), Green (fast scouts/raiders), and Blue (ranged attackers). Heroes disrupt this trinity, functioning as hero units (Warcraft III-style) with spell cards: Reimu’s Fantasy Seal decimates crowds, while Yukari Yakumo manipulates space to buff Gap structures.

The Mode system (Easy → Normal → Hard → Lunatic) gates tech progression. Advancing requires steep resource investments but rewards players with elite units like the Scarlet Devil Mansion’s “Red Books” (fire-wielding sorcerers) or Moriya Shrine’s divine artillery. Yet the UI—a cluttered, minimally annotated HUD—often obscures these upgrades, demanding wiki-aided perseverance.

Flaws & Innovations

Ethanols’ most inspired twist is its resource autism: replacing standard farms with breweries where workers “garrison” to produce beer injects humor and strategic nuance (protecting breweries becomes critical). Conversely, pathfinding is notoriously brittle; units routinely glitch around terrain, and Lunatic Mode’s enemy AI oscillates between exploitable passivity and overwhelming rushes. The lack of a campaign mode (only VS and online multiplayer) further limits its appeal, though modder patches later mitigated imbalances.

World-Building, Art & Sound

Visually, Ethanols embraces a charmingly rough-hewn aesthetic. Isometric maps render Gensokyo as patchwork biomes—Hakurei Shrine’s torii-dotted hills, Eientei’s bamboo forests—with spritework echoing early 2000s RTS titles. Units, while small, burst with Tōhō personality: Alice Margatroid’s dolls march in eerie synchronicity, while Myouren Temple’s youkai monks shuffle with deliberate piety.

Sound design leans on chiptune rearrangements of ZUN’s compositions (Septette for the Dead Princess, Border of Life), though sparse voice clips and repetitive SFX grate over time. Atmosphere thrives in moments of tranquility—ambient winds howling through Youkai Mountain—but dissipates amid chaotic battles, where visual noise overwhelms the screen. Ultimately, it’s a presentation of modest means, elevated by its love for the source material.

Reception & Legacy

Upon release, Age of Ethanols floated beneath mainstream radar, garnering a solitary 4.4/5 user rating on MobyGames and niche forum chatter (ShrineMaiden.org) praising its ambition. Critics overlooked it—doujin titles rarely breached Western outlets pre-2015—but its legacy simmered in the Tōhō fandom. Players celebrated its inventive faction designs, with Hakugyokurou’s teleportation tactics and Alice’s explosive “Bomb Upgrade” becoming community mainstays.

Its influence rippled through later doujin RTS projects, inspiring Sengoku Gensokyo’s tactical depth and Touhou Epic’s scale. Yet Ethanols remains a time capsule—a pre-Dota 2 modding culture artifact where imbalance was forgiven for creativity. Today, it persists via fan-translated patches and Discord preservationists, a testament to fandom’s archival fervor.

Conclusion

Age of Ethanols is neither a masterwork nor a footnote. It is a labor of passion—flawed, janky, yet brimming with idiosyncratic charm. Its RTS mechanics oscillate between inspired (asymmetrical factions, spell-card heroics) and infuriating (pathfinding, UI obfuscation), reflecting the doujin scene’s “by fans, for fans” ethos. For Tōhō devotees, it offers a captivating strategic playground; for RTS historians, a case study in genre adaptation under constraints. In an industry increasingly hostile to grassroots creativity, Age of Ethanols stands as a pixelated monument to what fandom can build when freed from commercial shackles. Not essential, but unforgettable.

Verdict: A 6.5/10 curiosity—best appreciated as a historical oddity, yet undeniably pivotal within its niche.